> Old organizations grow slow, new organizations can cut corners and the survivorship bias makes it seem like what they do is obvious and anyone not doing it should have known better.
Startups cutting corners certainly has some truth (e.g. the drama around SpaceX's last-minute flight approval for its Starship tests comes to mind). However, that doesn't mean the incumbents' processes are free from such problems.
For example, Boeing's new crew capsule encountered problems during testing. Investigating those problems exposed more problems which hadn't been spotted, and this worried NASA enough to launch an independent investigation into Boeing's development processes.
Even this SLS test could be argued as 'cutting corners': it's a repeat of an earlier test, which aborted early due to the hydraulic gimbal/steering system going outside an acceptable safety margin. The difference between that aborted test and this successful test is that they changed the acceptable safety margin.
Startups cutting corners certainly has some truth (e.g. the drama around SpaceX's last-minute flight approval for its Starship tests comes to mind). However, that doesn't mean the incumbents' processes are free from such problems.
For example, Boeing's new crew capsule encountered problems during testing. Investigating those problems exposed more problems which hadn't been spotted, and this worried NASA enough to launch an independent investigation into Boeing's development processes.
https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-finds-numerous...
Even this SLS test could be argued as 'cutting corners': it's a repeat of an earlier test, which aborted early due to the hydraulic gimbal/steering system going outside an acceptable safety margin. The difference between that aborted test and this successful test is that they changed the acceptable safety margin.